The Book Search

This week, I've stepped off the middle grade merry-go-round and I'm reading things my friends are recommending to me.  As you see the list, you'll see I have a pretty eclectic group of friends (lucky, lucky me!). The first one came from one of my best friends.  She and I have been friends for a LONG time, former co-workers, carpoolers, and neighbors.  We have many books in common and this latest one, "The Nightingale"by Kristin Hannah  I COULD NOT IT PUT DOWN.  It's a World War 2 book and just when I think I'm never going to read another book about World War 2, someone nags me into reading one and this one was worth the nag!  It's about two young women who have grown up in France in the 1930s.  They are sisters but they are not close.  Their mother died before the story starts and their father did not feel that he could properly care for them.  The girls are fairly far apart in age, so the older one is basically left to care for the younger...

Yesterday I got to go to the Miami Book Fair and wow, was it terrific.  In case you didn't know, there is a completely AMAZING book fair in Miami every year in November.  The down side is that the weather in November can be a bit dodgy.  It's Miami, so what that translates into is pretty much a range of choices... either it's sunny, quite warm and muggy or we get a cold front and it can be quite cool and windy.  This weekend we had the remarkable combination of lots of wind, muggy, rainy and not too hot.  Although it was not picture perfect weather, the event was as usual, just wonderful. The first thing that's awesome about the Miami book fair is that they invite authors from all over the place to come and speak.  Miami is a bilingual kind of town so there are many Hispanic as well and English speaking authors.  There is also an amazing range of authors from chefs to political commentators to fiction, poetry, non fiction, murder mysteries and kids ...